Save Him
by tempestlester
Summary: "I promise you that we'll always be best friends." are the words echoing in Phil's mind as he returns to area he left suddenly when he was 5, leaving behind his best friend, Dan. What will he do when he finds that his old best friend appears to have moved on and doesn't even remember his name?
1. Prologue

**_Hey so this is my first phanfiction, I tired writing a Hunger Games one a few years back but I just lost interest and motivation to write it... maybe I'll go back to it someday. Anyway, this is just the prologue, so it's a bit short, but I hope you like it! It's obviously an AU where both Dan and Phil are the same age, and later in the fic they will be OOC but it's just the fic so please don't yell at me saying 'Dan and Phil are nothing like this irl you shouldn't be allowed to write' etc._**

 ** _Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and I do not cast any aspersions on the real Dan and Phil_**

 _Prologue_

 _A boy with dark brown hair and chocolate-coloured eyes was playing in the sandbox at his local park, his mother sat on a bench not too far away engrossed in a book. The boy was so enthralled in making his sandcastle that he didn't notice another boy walk up to him until a shadow loomed over him._

 _He looked up and glared at the boy._

 _"What are you doing, you're making shadows across my castle!" he shouted._

 _The other boy pouted and ran a hand through his strawberry blond hair._

 _"I'm sorry I just thought you looked lonely and like you needed help building your castle and I came to keep you company and maybe help if you wanted me too and I didn't mean to upset you and -"_

 _"Oh shut up and sit down will you?" the first boy cut through the intruder's ramblings, whose azure eyes had started to fill up with unshed tears. "I didn't mean to upset you, you just surprised me that's all," he continued, smiling sadly at the other boy._

 _"Oh," fair-haired boy giggled, "did you want help with your sandcastle?"_

 _The dark-haired boy seemed to consider this for a moment before nodding. "Sure, why not. Maybe having two people make it will make it grow twice as fast!"_

 _The dark-haired boy's companion's face lit up in a bright smile. "Yay! Thanks for letting me help. I'm Phil by the way," he said, holding out his hand just like he'd seen his parents do with other adults._

 _"I'm Dan," the dark-haired boy said as he took the other's hand in his own and shook it. "Now let's make this sandcastle the biggest in the world!"_

 _Two years later_

 _A dark-haired boy and a fair-haired boy were running around their school playground playing a make-believe game in their own little world, unaware of the other children who looked at their friendship and wanted to be a part of it, or wanted something similar for themselves._

 _One brave boy decided that he'd had enough of just watching and decided to go up to the two boys, aware that their entire year was watching him do something they'd all been too scared to do._

 _"Hey, um, guys," he began once he'd reached the two, running a hand through his blond hair, "would it be alright if I maybe joined in with your game?"_

 _The fair-haired boy shared a look with his dark-haired companion before turning back to the blue-eyed boy who had just interrupted their game._

 _"Hi, um, sorry Caspar, this game's only really for two people to play and there's already me and Dan so sorry about that. Maybe we can make up a three-player game at some point?" he suggested, feeling guilty at the sad expression on the blond-haired boy's face._

 _"Oh, yeah, of course. I'll uh, see you guys later then," Caspar said, upset at the textbook 'we don't want to play with you' rejection, before walking off to go find a place to hide his embarrassment._

 _Meanwhile, Phil turned to the boy stood next to him, "I always feel bad turning people away, Dan, maybe we should start including more people in our games."_

 _"Maybe, but I don't want to lose you, Phil," Dan said, looking his friend in the eyes, "because I feel like if we include more people, they'll steal you away from me."_

 _Phil sighed. "Dan, you're my best friend, and you always will be, ok? No one's going to be stealing me from you, just the same as no one's going to be stealing you from me, yeah?"_

 _"OK," Dan nodded, "but d'you mean it when you said that we'll always be best friends?"_

 _"Yes, I mean it, Dan."_

 _"Promise?"_

 _"I promise you that we'll always be best friends."_

 ** _Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the prologue; it is a bit short but that is because it's just the prologue!_**

 ** _Please review!_**


	2. Chapter 1

**_I know it's been a while since I posted the prologue but I had exams and lots of stuff going on in my life, so I hope this chapter can make up for that!_**

 ** _So anyway, here's chapter 1!_**

Chapter 1

 _Ten years later_

 _"I promise you that we'll always be best friends."_

Those words echoed through Phil's head as he made his way into his new school. The words that he had said to his best friend the day Phil had found out that his family were moving up north, leaving them with no way of contacting each other or keeping in touch. They were, after all, only five at the time. A pang of regret shot through Phil as he pushed the main door to the school open, wondering how his best friend had coped with never hearing from Phil again, wondering if the brown-haired, brown-eyed boy had found new friends like Phil had been forced to after he'd been ripped away from the only real friend he'd known.

Phil sighed and ran a hand through his now black hair, trying to dispel the thoughts of his old best friend and the feeling of regret that had placed itself in his mind from the moment his parents had announced that they were moving back down to the south, to the same area that they had moved away from those ten years ago, and Phil had realised he had forgotten the promise he had made, and forgotten the boy he had made it to.

 _Come on Phil just leave it, he's probably forgotten about you as well, you were only five last time you saw each other,_ Phil thought as he made his way over to the reception, where the receptionist gave him a wide smile.

"Good morning! How can I help you?" she asked

"Um, I'm new here and I was hoping you'd have my timetable and locker number or something?" Phil replied, feeling slightly unnerved at her smile.

"Ah, yes, of course! Can I please have your name so I can check the system?" she said, the smile never leaving her face.

"Oh, it's Phil Lester," he replied with a small smile.

She typed the name into the system and waited a couple of seconds. "Ah yes, Philip Lester. Let me just print this off for you," she said and she turned and faced what Phil presumed to be the printer before handing him a piece of paper. "Here is your timetable, and your locker number is 247. Is there anything else you would like help with?"

Phil glanced at his timetable, about to say he was alright when he realised something. "Um could you please tell me where my form room is, actually, I have no idea where I'm going," he said with a nervous giggle at the end.

Her smile turned slightly sympathetic. "Of course I can! It's on the first floor up the stairs over there, down the corridor and the last door to your right."

Phil nodded. "Thank you so much!"

"It's no problem, it is what I'm here for after all!" she said grinning once again. "I hope you have a lovely first day!"

Phil smiled a somewhat genuine smile. "Thanks!" he replied before heading off to the stairs the receptionist had pointed out. While walking, he looked down at his timetable to make sure all of the right subjects were there and when he looked up, he saw that he had almost walked into a group of four intimidating-looking boys. His eyed widened and he just managed to dodge out of their way before he walked into one of them. Thinking he was in the clear, he was about to keep walking when the boy he had almost walked into turned around, ran a hand through his brown hair and settled Phil with a brown-eyed glare before shouting:

"Watch where you're going, dickbag, we're walking here!"

The boy then turned back to his mates and they all started laughing before walking off.

Phil just shook his head at the typical school bullies and returned to trying to find his form room.

When he finally found his form room, he slowly opened the door to find the room mostly empty, save for a group of people sat in the middle of the room talking in hushed voices and the teacher, a greying man with glasses perched on his nose. He decided to go to the teacher first, who looked up as Phil approached.

"Uh, hi, I'm Ph-Phil Lester and I'm new here," Phil cursed himself for his awkwardness that caused him to stumble over his name.

The teacher took off his glasses and nodded. "Ah, yes, I was told to expect a new student. My name is Mr Smith, and I'll be your form tutor and I believe I am going to be your English teacher as well, Mr Lester. You can sit where you like."

"Um, ok, thank you Mr Smith," Phil said as he gave a small smile to the teacher and headed towards the middle of the room, but a seat by the window. As he sat down, he pulled out his phone to find three messages from one of his friends-from-the-north, Nate.

 _Nate: Hey man, good luck at your new school today_ _J_

 _Nate: It's going to be so weird without you here_

 _Nate: We're still up for Skyping after school though, right?_

Phil smiled at his friend's habit of sending multiple texts at once instead of just one long text and replied

 _Phil: Thanks Nate, it's weird not to have your annoying jokes filling up form time like usual and yes I'm still on to skype after school_ _J_

Just as Phil hit send he felt a presence in front of him and looked up to find a blonde-haired girl smiling down at him.

"Hi I'm Louise! You're new, aren't you?" she said as she pulled out the chair directly in front of him, turned it around and sat in it.

Phil smiled back at her. "Yeah, my name's Phil. It's nice to meet you," he said.

"You too. And is that a bit of a northern accent I can hear?" she said as she leaned in, as if it was a secret that he might be from the north.

"Yeah, I lived up north near Manchester for the past ten years and then my parents decided it would be nice to live in the south again so here I am," he replied.

"Again? So you lived in the south before you moved up north and you still have a northern accent? That's so cute!" she said while grinning.

Phil couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm. "Well, yeah, I basically grew up around northern people so my accent kind of went a bit northern? I guess? I don't know," he said, shrugging.

Louise cooed. "Aw you're so cute, I can tell we're going to be good friends," she grinned, "I'm just glad I got to you before anyone else did so you can join our friendship group!"

Phil let out a small laugh. "Wow, I feel so honoured to be let into your friendship group of what appears to be just you so far."

She mock glared at Phil. "I'll have you know there are other people in the group, they just either aren't here yet or they're not in this form," she said.

Phil giggled at her glare. "Ok, I'll believe you Louise. So who isn't here yet then?"

"It's just PJ and Chris other than me in this form, so you'll be getting a slow introduction into the group it seems, and they always arrive right as form is about to start." She glanced over to the door, as a loud cackle could be heard approaching the room. "Speak of the devils," she sighed. "'Get ready."

"Get ready? For what?" Phil asked, alarmed.

"You'll see," Louise replied cryptically as two boys burst into the room, one with dark, wavy hair and green eyes and the other with dark, messy hair and hazel eyes. The boys made their way over to Phil and Louise and the second boy crashed into the chair next to Louise and rubbed his head against her shoulder.

"Louise! I've missed you over the long summer! It has been too long my good friend Louise!" he all but shouted, still nuzzling his head against her shoulder.

"Chris, you saw me on Saturday, it's literally been two days since you last saw me," Louise deadpanned, causing the boy Phil guessed to be Chris to stop nuzzling her shoulder and pout up at her.

"Louise why don't you let me be dramatic? Life's more fun that way," he said, finally lifting his head from her shoulder.

"Sure it is, Chris. Anyway, guys, this is Phil, he's new here," she gestured to Phil and the two boys looked over at him, so he gave them a small wave.

"Hi," was all Phil managed to say before Chris started speaking again.

"Hello good Philip, I am Chris, king of this form room and you can address me as King Chris, Your Majesty, Your Highness, Sir, or, if you do so prefer, The Most Handsomest and Talentedest King of all time. You can choose, I'm not too picky," he said, and looked like he was going to continue before the other boy interrupted.

"Chris, stop trying to assert yourself as royalty. It's never going to happen." He rolled his eyes and turned to Phil. "I'm PJ and I apologise for my mess of a boyfriend over there," he said, grinning.

Phil smiled back. "It's fine, honest. Although I'm not sure 'talentedest' is a word," he said, pretending to ponder over it, "but it's nice to meet you guys."

Chris started pouting again. "I'm offended that you criticised my beautiful speech, but I guess having another friend isn't a bad thing."

"I didn't criticise your speech, I just criticised your grammar," Phil replied, shrugging.

Chris continued looking offended as PJ flopped into the spare chair next to Phil. "I'm liking your banter, Phil. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship," he said, slinging an arm over Phil's shoulder, "you'll fit right in with our group."

Phil smiled. "Thanks, that actually means a lot to me."

"No problem," he said, and was about to continue when he was interrupted by the bell signalling the start of form, and Mr Smith clearing his throat and standing up.

"Right, well welcome back to another year of school, except this is year eleven so I expect every single one of you to be working hard to achieve the best you can in your GCSEs, especially you, Mr Kendall," Mr Smith said, pointedly looking at Chris.

Chris' face was instantly the look of innocence. "What, me? I always work hard, you know that, Mr Smith!"

The teacher just hummed, clearly disagreeing with that statement, before continuing. "Now before I start, we have a new student to welcome to the school and our form. Please stand up, Mr Lester, and introduce yourself with an interesting fact about yourself."

Phil inwardly groaned at the typical 'get to know me' fact but stood up anyway and raised a hand in a wave. "Hi, I'm Phil and I like watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer?" he said before quickly looking down and taking his seat, cheeks flushed with embarrassment at around thirty pairs of eyes staring at him.

Mr Smith nodded, and started speaking again. "Yes, well, please be nice to Mr Lester and allow him time to settle in and –" the students never got to find out what the teacher was going to finish saying as at that moment the door banged open and two figures strode in.

Phil glanced up at the figures and to his dismay saw the brown-haired boy that had called him a 'dickbag' earlier for almost walking into him and one of his friends stood there with smirks on their faces. Phil quickly ducked his head in an attempt not to draw attention to himself.

Mr Smith did not seen impressed by the boys' late arrival.

"Mr Howell and Mr Lee, I see that you still do not know how to turn up on time to form despite having been at this school for four years now," he said. Phil's eyes widened and mouth opened at the first surname to pass the teacher's lips. _No, it can't be,_ he thought, getting trapped in memories from ten years ago, unaware of the stares his three new friends were giving him. Phil snapped himself out of his thoughts with a shake of his head and a _it's just a coincidence, Phil, there's no way that's him_ and managed to hear the response given by the brown-haired boy.

"Oh, come on, Smithy, you'll let it slide, right? It is the start of a new year, after all," he said.

Mr Smith's eyes narrowed. "No, I will not let it slide, Mr Howell, because if I do, you will believe that you can continue being late for the rest of the year and I will not stand for that. You will both have a lunchtime detention today. Go sit down."

But the two boys did not sit down, in fact, the brown-haired boy's smirk grew even wider. "Can't you just do me a favour, Smithy? I don't really want a detention on the first day back, that's not very fair."

Mr Smith just gritted his teeth. "Mr Howell, that is lunchtime detentions for the whole of this week for arguing with a teacher."

"But sir-"

"Do you want to make it a month's worth of lunchtime detentions?"

The smirk dropped from his face instantly. "No," he said sullenly.

"Then be quiet and go sit down, Daniel." Phil's heart dropped at the sound of the brown-haired boy's first name. _It's him, it's actually him and he's the kind of person I never thought he or I would be._ Phil sighed in disappointment. _There goes my chances of reconnecting with my old best friend._ Phil looked up to see the two boys had made the way to the back of the room and sat down, glaring at the teacher at the front of the room.

A kick to his foot brought Phil back to the people in front of him.

"Why didn't you tell us," Louise whispered urgently.

"Um, tell you what?" Phil replied, confused.

"That you're the Phil from the story," Chris chimed in.

"What story?" Phil asked, still confused.

"Basically there's a story that the entire school knows, well at least our whole year, of how the bully and general douche-bag that is Dan Howell came to be," PJ explained.

"I don't see why this has anything to do with me," Phil said, still confused and now slightly worried.

"It has everything to do with you, Phil," Louise said, her voice an urgent whisper.

"What, why?"

"Because," PJ continued, "you were the catalyst that started it all."

 ** _I know it's a cliffhanger but I thought the chapter was getting a bit long and I wanted to end it so I thought that was a good place to finish it! I will try to get chapter 2 up soon when I can find the time to write it which hopefully will be soon!_**

 ** _Thanks for reading! Please review and let me know if you're enjoying it so far!_**


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